BETWEEN THE LINES

Be glad Portman's son isn't serial killer

Joseph Farah is founder, editor and CEO of WND and a nationally syndicated columnist with Creators News Service.. He is the author or co-author of 13 books, including his latest, "The Tea Party Manifesto," and his classic, "Taking America Back," now in its third edition and 14th printing. Farah is the former editor of the legendary Sacramento Union and other major-market dailies.

I’ve heard some wacky excuses by politicians for changing their minds on some of the most important moral issues facing America, but Ohio Sen. Rob Portman’s rationale for flip-flopping on same-sex marriage takes the proverbial wedding cake.

In case you haven’t heard, his son is a homosexual.

“I have come to believe that if two people are prepared to make a lifetime commitment to love and care for each other in good times and in bad, the government shouldn’t deny them the opportunity to get married,” Portman wrote in a commentary published Friday in the Columbus Dispatch.

I guess we should all be grateful Rob Portman’s son didn’t choose to become a polygamist or a serial killer.

I have no doubt Rob Portman is sincere in his newfound opinion.

However, that’s all it is – an opinion.

And opinions don’t determine what is right and what is wrong. Opinions don’t determine what is sinful and what is not sinful. Opinions don’t determine what is truth and what is a lie.

Few are willing to say it anymore, but I will: Morality is determined by God, not men.

Portman’s statement about two people making a lifetime commitment to love and care for each other is very touching. But it’s not what marriage is about. People make such commitments all the time. Parents make lifetime commitments to love and care for their disabled children. They don’t generally marry them. Siblings sometimes do the same thing. I trust Portman is not advocating incestual relations as next on his list of reflective changes in the law.

And then there’s the question no one in the same-sex marriage camp wants to answer: Why should such marriages be limited to couples? Isn’t that narrow-minded and bigoted? Why not legalize polygamy or group marriages?

I once asked a noted homosexual-activist radio talker this question. His answer was remarkable: “There is no demand for polygamy,” he said.

No demand? There’s far more demand for polygamy than for same-sex marriage. One of the biggest religions in the world, with more than 1 billion adherents, says it is perfectly all right. Another religion, based in the U.S., was forced to change its beliefs so that Utah could enter the union. And polygamy is not waning in popularity – it’s on the rise.

If you think it is of little consequence that a Republican senator has decided to cave to the cultural pressure to redefine the institution of marriage, think again.

Portman was one of a handful of politicians on Mitt Romney’s short list for a vice presidential running mate.

Even more important right now is that Portman is the vice chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee whose sole job is to raise money for Republican Senate candidates in 2014. How would you like to be an anti-establishment Republican Senate candidate who affirms that holy matrimony is an institution created by God in the Garden of Eden with Rob Portman doling out money to Republican Senate candidates? This is one more very important reason not to send a dime to the NRSC or to Karl Rove’s super PACs. Give your money only to the campaigns of worthy candidates.

People like Todd Akin and Steve King don’t represent a threat to the future of the Republican Party. People like Rob Portman and Karl Rove represent a clear and present danger to its future.

What they are pushing is not liberty, it is licentiousness. What they are pushing is not morality, it is moral relativism. What they are pushing is not the kind of virtue and personal responsibility that makes self-government possible, it is the kind of pop-culture immorality that makes self-government impossible.

“In short, contrary to the founders – and in ways they do not realize themselves – Americans today are heedlessly pursuing a vision of freedom that is short-lived and suicidal,” said Os Guinness. “Once again, freedom without virtue, leadership without character, business without trust, law without customs, education without meaning and medicine, science and technology without human considerations can end only in disaster.”

Do you believe in the God of the Bible?

Here’s what He said about marriage in Genesis 2:24: “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.”

Here’s what He said about homosexuality in Leviticus 18:22: “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.”

Do you believe in Jesus as your Lord and Savior?

Here’s what He said about marriage in Matthew 19:4-6: “Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.”

Do you believe the Apostle Paul was divinely inspired in his New Testament writings?

Here’s what he said in Romans 1:18-32: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, They glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

“For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.”

Whom are you going to believe – the Creator of the universe or Rob Portman?

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